Written by Jon Williams
It was a cruel and heartbreaking year in the entertainment industry, with the passing of so many larger-than-life figures, so many of them in unexpected fashion. And unfortunately, 2016 ended much the same way it began. Our first blog post of the year reflected on the passing of David Bowie, and it was followed up a week later with one memorializing Alan Rickman and Glenn Frey. It got no easier from there; some of the notable names we lost in 2016 include Abe Vigoda, Harper Lee, Garry Shandling, Patty Duke, Merle Haggard, Doris Roberts, Prince, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Elie Wiesel, Garry Marshall, Juan Gabriel, Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke, and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Seeing those
names all listed together, it’s a pretty stark list of so many talented people.
And sadly, even the holiday season offered no respite. On December 24 we lost Richard
Adams, author of the classic Watership
Down (which George R.R. Martin called “one of the three great fantasy
novels of the twentieth century”) as well as several other well-received novels.
Then, the next day, came the passing of pop superstar George
Michael, a groundbreaking figure in popular culture who won a Grammy Award
for Album of the Year for his debut solo album, 1987’s Faith.
On Monday of
this week, Carrie
Fisher passed away. Fisher, of course, will forever be most associated with
her role playing Princess Leia in Star
Wars Episodes IV-VI, and then
later in The
Force Awakens, but there was much more to her than just that one role,
iconic as it may be. In addition to her acting career, she was also an
acclaimed writer, responsible for the semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge, as well as the
screenplay for the
film starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine. Her one-woman show Wishful
Drinking was turned into a successful book, and her most recent memoir,
The
Princess Diarist, was released earlier this year. What many fans don’t
know is that she put her writing talent to good use during her Hollywood
career, serving as an uncredited “script doctor” to punch up dialogue for such
films as the
Star Wars prequels, Hook,
Sister
Act, Scream
3, and The
Wedding Singer, among others.
What makes
the story even sadder is that Fisher’s mother, Debbie
Reynolds, passed away just one day later. An actress, singer, and dancer,
Reynolds earned a Golden Globe nomination at the age of 18 for Most Promising
Newcomer, and her breakout came when she starred opposite Gene Kelly in 1952’s Singin’
in the Rain. She followed that up with roles in films like The
Affairs of Dobie Gillis, Bundle
of Joy, and The
Unsinkable Molly Brown. More recent performances included a recurring
role on Will & Grace and as
Liberace’s mother in Behind
the Candelabra. She even did some voice acting, starting with Charlotte’s
Web in 1973 and continuing through The
Penguins of Madagascar. The relationship between Reynolds and Fisher is
explored in the documentary Bright Lights,
which will air on HBO next month.
As we get
set to watch the ball drop on 2016 this weekend, we can only hope that the
coming year will be a kinder one. In the meantime, libraries can help keep the
memories of all these wonderful performers alive by sharing with patrons the
incredible work they left behind.